May 6, 2015

By Kelli Viele

The end of spring semester snuck up on us all, and you know what that means: time to pack and move out.
Whether you are a student making the transition from the residence halls  to off-campus housing, moving from one place to another or just moving back home for the summer, packing up and moving from your current residence is exciting until you realize how much stuff you have.
For the past three years, I lived in the same studio apartment and managed to accumulate quite an abundance of stuff, and now face the same reality of packing up and moving out. But do not fret; I have created helpful tips and advice that will make your life easier when it comes to packing up and moving out.
To cut down on boxes you will have to carry and the amount of trips you will have to take, use storage containers, laundry baskets, hampers and suitcases to pack items in. These items have to be loaded up anyway, so use them to your advantage and fill them with your things.
Instead of taking all your clothes off the hangers, packing them away, then re-hanging them up when you get to your new place, leave them on their hangers. Grab large sections of clothes from your closet, fold the section in half and place the clothes in a garbage bag. When you get to your new place, all you have to do is grab the chunk of hangers, pull them out of the garbage bag and hang them up. As college students, we do not have much time to spare, and packing clothes this way will save you lots of time.
For your clothes that are not on hangers, do not spend time folding – roll them up instead. You will be able to save more space by rolling up your clothes and you will also save time, as task folding clothes can be tedious: rolling them is fast and simple.
Use a color-coding system for each different room. I suggest getting a pack of the variety colored round garage sale price stickers to do this. These be found at the dollar store. Place one of each colored sticker on a piece of paper and write the room that is associated with that color. For example, if you choose the color yellow for the kitchen, place that colored sticker on all boxes with kitchen items. When moving into your new place, boxes can be carried straight to appropriate room because you know exactly which room they belong to.
In addition to your color-coding system, label what is in your boxes. This will help you know and decide what boxes to unpack first and what boxes can be unpacked at a later time or date. It is important to label the sides of the boxes not the tops so that if they are stacked you can still read your labeling.
Have a box of small plastic sandwich bags within easy reach while packing up. When taking apart anything that has screws or other little accessories needed to put it back together, make sure these get put into their specific item bag and are sealed securely. With a permanent marker, label outside of each bag so you know which pieces are to put together what when you get to your new place. When you go to put that bookshelf, TV stand or bed frame back together, all the pieces will be in the same place and none will be missing.
Packing up and moving out can be stressful and hectic, but I hope that the tips that I have given will help make the process easier for you.